BEEF STICKS
CSU students help hungry Colorado kids
By Tony Phifer | Photography by John Cline and Joe A. Mendoza / Colorado State University | May 4, 2026
For three years, Alie Lock has donned a white coat, hard hat, and gloves several days a week to begin the job that is helping pay for her education at Colorado State University.
Lock, a senior in animal science, works in CSU’s Meat Laboratory for one of the university’s high-impact community programs: Beef Sticks for Backpacks.
In its seventh year, Beef Sticks for Backpacks has donated more than 3.2 million high-protein beef sticks for Colorado children facing food insecurity – kids who lack access to enough nutritious food to meet basic health needs. The program donated 730,000 beef sticks during the most recent school year alone.
Beef Sticks for Backpacks is a nonprofit formed through a unique partnership between CSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences and key donors, including well-known agricultural companies. Using CSU student employees and facilities in the Meat Lab at the JBS Global Food Innovation Center, the program provides 25,000 beef sticks per week to Colorado food banks. From there, the beef sticks go to children facing food insecurity through food backpack programs, which provide kids with healthy food for weekends and holidays, when school meals are not available.
“When I first started, I didn’t know anything about this program or the process,” said Lock, who is among three dozen CSU students working for Beef Sticks for Backpacks. “Now I know the entire process from start to finish, and I love it. It’s great to work in a program that connects you to the community and helps kids all over the state.”
Left: Alie Lock, a student in animal science, works in CSU’s Meat Laboratory to produce beef sticks for a program that helps ensure Colorado schoolchildren have adequate nutrition on the weekends. Right: Reisa Paulsey, a CSU student in agricultural sciences, carries fresh ground beef used to make Beef Sticks for Backpacks at the JBS Global Food Innovation Center.
Top: Alie Lock, a student in animal science, works in CSU’s Meat Laboratory to produce beef sticks for a program that helps ensure Colorado schoolchildren have adequate nutrition on the weekends. Bottom: Reisa Paulsey, a CSU student in agricultural sciences, carries fresh ground beef used to make Beef Sticks for Backpacks at the JBS Global Food Innovation Center.
The program is motivated by a problem: One in six Colorado kids faces food insecurity. That’s just slightly better than the national average of one in five, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
CSU supporter Jordan Levi and his wife, Shannon, decided to help tackle the issue shortly after moving to Colorado in 2018. Levi, a member of CSU’s AgIndustry Leadership Council, is founder and CEO of Arcadia Asset Management. He led a push by Arcadia to acquire Colorado-based Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, the world’s largest cattle feeding company.
“Shannon and I were trying to find a way to give back to the community because the cattle industry has been very good to us,” Levi said. “Shannon heard about a program in Texas that is similar to Beef Sticks for Backpacks, and we set up meetings with Bob Delmore at CSU to see if we could partner to make this thing happen.”
Delmore is a professor of meat science and food safety in CSU’s Department of Animal Sciences. He helped establish the university’s JBS Global Food Innovation Center in Honor of Gary and Kay Smith; it is home to the Meat Lab, a processing facility that teaches animal science students a spectrum of skills related to meat safety and quality.
Delmore was at first uncertain about the Meat Lab’s capacity to start and sustain the program. In fact, when it began in 2019, Beef Sticks for Backpacks aimed to produce just 500 beef sticks per week for hungry kids in the area – not enough to put a real dent in the problem.
So, Levi went to work, calling on industry partners to either donate equipment or to give CSU a substantial cost break. The results were astounding: A production line that had struggled to make 500 of the beef sticks per week now sends 50 times that to backpack programs every week.
Alie Lock, Zac Schmunk, and Sammi DeVries-Voeglein are among three dozen CSU students who work for the Beef Sticks for Backpacks program, earning income for school while gaining valuable job skills.
While the impact on hungry Colorado kids is undeniable, Beef Sticks for Backpacks also benefits CSU students in ways never imagined. About 35 CSU students work part time for the program; their starting pay is $17 per hour. The student employees simultaneously gain valuable industry skills while guided by three staff members with the JBS Global Food Innovation Center.
“This is one of the best-paying student jobs on campus, and the experience they get really translates well to the professional workplace,” Delmore said.
Students work 40 to 45 weeks during the year, building enough inventory to cover breaks in the fall, winter, and summer. They work Monday through Friday on a set schedule: Monday, grinding 2,500 pounds of donated meat; Tuesday, mixing the ground meat with a spice blend and stuffing it into casing; Wednesday and Thursday, cutting and baking; Friday, loading 250 sticks in each box to be delivered to food banks near and far.
“It really is a pretty amazing operation, and we’ve really perfected the process over the past few years,” said Sophia Hightower, an animal science graduate and production manager. “Every step is vitally important, but we emphasize efficiency and not speed.”
“When I meet teachers and they talk about Beef Sticks for Backpacks, they are almost tearful because they are so thankful. That’s incredibly gratifying.”
The program uses monetary donations and donated products to sustain its work. Each week, Five Rivers Cattle Feeding donates 2,500 pounds of meat, which is mixed with donated spices before further processing and packaging. Monetary donations cover salaries and equipment maintenance.
More than 30 organizations support the program, including JBS Foods, Texas Roadhouse, WeldWerks Brewing Co., Arcadia Asset Management, SCHEELS, the Colorado Beef Council, and many others. Individual donations are also accepted.
Levi hopes to push weekly production to 30,000 sticks – or even higher. He takes pride in the fact that several other states and colleges are starting similar programs.
“When I meet teachers and they talk about Beef Sticks for Backpacks, they are almost tearful because they are so thankful,” Levi said. “That’s incredibly gratifying.”
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